The Journey: With Power 9-10-2020

By Dean Foster

The Journey: With Power

            A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped.  But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?"  He woke up and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, "Peace!  Be still!"  Then the winds ceased and there was dead calm.  He said to them, "Why are you afraid?  Have you still no faith?"  And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, "Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?"

Mark 4:37—41

            With just three words Jesus stopped the storm that threatened his men out on the Sea of Galilee.  This display of power astounds me every time I read it.  I've always thought the immediate response of a ferocious wind and the crashing sea to a few words from our Almighty God was the power that takes hold of us in this narrative.  His rebuke holds the wind in its place.  His word alone causes the churning sea to be as still as a quiet pond.

            Then at some point I wondered, isn't the story also striking because the men in the boat with Jesus are just like us?  That is, can't we, don't we identify with them as Jesus makes this happen?  These chosen disciples who have been with him as he healed the paralyzed, the lepers, and those with diseases we can't name or number.  The men in that boat saw him open the eyes of the blind and call out to the lame to take up their bed and walk home with it.  We know the disciples were there and would be there for all of it and yet we can identify with them out there in the boat.  When all seems lost even their faith was not all it could be.  

            Then again, don't we identify with the disciples in the boat when we ask some form of the question, "Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?"   As we follow Him in search of the answer.

            Welcome to The Journey.

            John was a sight laying there in his hospital bed all hung up and stretched out in the white slings, stainless steel chain and bars of traction equipment.  He was a muscular guy for sixteen years old anyhow and the bed was longer than usual for all of the clamps and adjusting wheels.  He was in the room next to mine and I could at least get out of bed and into a wheelchair.  When the nurses let me or didn't see me, I'd go over to his room and we would talk.  One day as we got to know each other he told me what happened to him.   John told me the tackling machine was the second of what their coaching staff called "eye opening drills."  It was the second thing they did to start the morning session of their "two-a-day" preseason high school football summer practices. 

            I knew what he was talking about.  We had one of those and did the same thing at our practices.  The team lined up off to one side of the machine so each player could step out and take their turn when the black leather and duct tape covered, slightly foam padded hollow steel cylinder came at you.  The spring loaded "can" we called it, hung from a chain attached to an overhead track.  When you were "up," the coach released it and the heavy cylinder came at you.  Your job was to meet it, put your shoulder into it, wrap your arms around it like a tackle and drive it back.  All the way back until it clicked into place which set it up to be released on the next guy. 

            John told me how he hit the cylinder low with his shoulder right in the middle of it, which was right.  Then how he started to drive it backwards just the way he was supposed to.  Then as he pushed against the huge spring driving the can back, all of a sudden halfway back something caught or jammed and it stopped.      

            John said he felt a sharp pain between his shoulders for just a second and then fell to the ground.  A coach and one of the other players helped him get up but he said he felt a little dizzy so one of the coaches told him to sit down for a while.  John said at first, they thought the Tackling machine had just knocked the wind out of him a little.  Then when they saw the machine appeared to be broken two of the coaches came over to check on him again.       

            When they asked, John said he told them his back kind of hurt so they decided maybe one of them should take him to the emergency room and have him checked out.   You see, this all happened back in 1972 in a small town not far from Akron, Ohio.  Back in 1972 there wasn't anything like calling 911 for a medical emergency.  There were ambulances of course but they were for real medical emergencies like car accidents and the like.  The school, coaches, everyone thought in those terms.  This was a high school kid who got his "bell rung" a little hard at football practice.  You drive him to the hospital and let them have a look at him.  No big deal.  Maybe he goes home early for the day. 

            John told me they had him take off his shoulder pads and change into his regular shoes, then one of the coaches helped John into the car and they left for the emergency room at one of the hospitals in Akron.  The coach helped John out of the car because his back was really bothering him by the time they arrived at the hospital and walked into the ER.  When they told the ER doctor what had happened and what was bothering John the doctor immediately ordered x-rays of his back and spine. 

            "They were very careful moving me at that point." I remember John saying, "And especially when they got me on the x-ray table." 

            John said he had been in one traction set up or another ever since.  Holding him in place so he doesn't move hardly at all.  The x-rays revealed that he had cracked his spine in two places so it was going to be a while before he could do anything like he used to. 

            John's Mom, whom I had met before, had come into his room halfway through John's story. She just sat down at the end of his bed and listened with me until he was done. 

            Then she asked urgently, "Aren't you going to tell him the best part?"

            John answered, "Go ahead, you are better at that." 

            John's Mom first asked if I believed in God and at fourteen years old, I told her sure I did.  Then she said good because she was going to tell me what God had done for her boy.  The "football machine" cracked his spine in two places that morning she said.  The doctors told them later that the cracks were very serious and could have left him badly paralyzed to one degree or another right there.   They said it was hard to explain why that didn't happen but he seemed to be O.K.

            "Think about it though Dean," that and the phrase, "God was with him!" are the only exact words I remember of what she said next as she told me the rest of it.  She said remember, John's spine was cracked when his coaches had him take off his shoulder pads and change shoes.  God was with him.  His spine was cracked when the coach helped him into the car.  "Now think of this Dean."  John's spine was cracked in two places riding in his coach's car as they drove to the hospital.  Think of this.  They crossed over two sets of railroad tracks and the terrible uneven steel bridge on state road in Cuyahoga Falls to get to the hospital.  God was so with him or he would be paralyzed today.  When she finished, John's mom was crying a little, dabbing tears from her cheeks with a handkerchief.  My mom had come in and was standing with one hand on his mom's shoulder.

            She said something like, "I just wanted you to know the whole story Dean to help you realize that God is with you the same way he is with John and other young men like the two of you.  Think about that Dean."

            Quiet miracles like this one from John's life happen every day.  So, there are many people you might ask if you wonder how they compare to the power of God displayed that day when he calmed the storm.  For instance, there are mothers sitting beside hospital beds right now dabbing tears of joy because their child has been spared.  They know God is in control.  And somewhere there is a young man like I was just starting to wonder something like I asked myself later that night, "Who then is this, that even the bones in our bodies obey him?"

This is The Journey.